The Ultimate Why There Is Evil in the World Thread.

[Neo-Scholastic]

First: "the atheists" don't have to do anything.  Atheists need not demonstrate anything about a god...

You're right atheists don't have to prove anything until they do try to prove something like the notion that theodicy disproves God. In the context of this thread an intelligent reader would be able to recognize my use of the word atheist as a generality and not a universal.

Second: you have a real problem with this shit.  I'm really sick of you lumping atheists together the way you do.  

With all due respect..screw you. I'm not about to qualify every single use of the word 'atheist' with "those atheists who" or "only atheists that" just because you lack the wit to read things in context.

[rexbeccarox]

Excuse me, Chad, but why on earth do you think I was responding to you? I quoted Hatshepust directly.

So, no. Screw you.

[Pyrrho]

Sorry for having created a thread and not checking back in for awhile. I have not been feeling well. 

I would think that you not feeling well is evidence that you have been reading the thread.

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I hope you are feeling better.

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[Crossless2.0]

Excuse me, Chad, but why on earth do you think I was responding to you?  I quoted Hatshepust directly.

So, no.  Screw you.

*Ahem* . . . wit, context . . . *cough*

Lol

[Neo-Scholastic]

If there were a God, that being could have introduced penicillin in 1800 (and yes, earlier, and could also have created a world where penicillin was not needed, but let us keep this simple). Since God did not do so, we know that this is not the best of all possible worlds.

That’s speculation. You cannot show that the introduction of penicillin at an earlier date would have not had worse consequences then or better consequences in the future.

Humans are constantly trying to improve the world, and they do occasionally succeed. The fact that they are able to improve it proves that it was inferior.

Alternate explanations are available. Humans could be correcting deficiencies that are of their own making or simply the result of being finite creatures with finite knowledge, which in itself is not a deficiency.

…they reject all reason on the matter and simply dogmatically assert that this is somehow best, in some mysterious, inscrutable way.

You are the one making the claim that the world could be better. I am simply asking you to show that a better world is possible without resorting to speculation. I am just calling you out on your inability to supply valid reasons that support your ‘disproof of God’.

The theist needs to prove that creating a universe is better than not creating one.

I assume your life is not without its share of suffering. Does that mean that you would prefer never having been born? Or now that you do exist, in what you consider a crapsack world, will you accelerate your own demise? I doubt that very much.

Creating a bad universe is worse than nothing, and we have no reason to suppose that this universe is, overall, better than nothing.

That’s your opinion. Nothing more. Especially since, as an atheist, you cannot offer any objective criteria by which you make value judgments.

The idea that this world is better than nothing is ridiculous. The idea that this is the best of all possible worlds is more worthy of ridicule than of argument.

There is no reason why I should accept your opinion.

[Cyberman]

"show that a better world is possible without resorting to speculation"? The whole damn setup is an exercise in speculation! It's like saying "bake me a better cake without resorting to ingredients"!

[Neo-Scholastic]

"show that a better world is possible without resorting to speculation"? The whole damn setup is an exercise in speculation! It's like saying "bake me a better cake without resorting to ingredients"!

Then the whole disproof falls apart as an argument from incredulity.

[Cyberman]

Demonstrating that the initial request was malformed, dishonest and set up to fail.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Demonstrating that the initial request was malformed, dishonest and set up to fail.

Not at all. The Problem of Evil is a very real issue that must be confronted and reconciled with other claims about the Divine. My position is that the problem is not insurmountable. The believer can show that proposed solutions are consistent with the doctrines of faith. While many of the proposed solutions are themselves speculative, the objections raised are every bit as speculative. Thus the issue remains without a definitive answer. On its own, the existence of evil is not sufficient to refute the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent God.  

[Randy Carson]

...


I'm using "want" here in the sense that God is lacking or wanting for something. He is not.

In the sense that He wills things to happen, sure...He "wants" them to happen for our benefit. But not because he is making up for something missing in His own life

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Yet more of your typical bullshit nonsense.  Before we were created, it was impossible to do anything for us, because there was no us to be benefited.  The act of creating in the first place can only be because God wants to do so, which means he lacks something that he desires.  This is proof that god is defective.

And the idea that creating the world as we have it is for our benefit is so fucking stupid you should be ashamed to say such nonsense.  Right, we have diseases for our benefit.  And earthquakes.  And too many other bad things to list.   Your claim that this is for us is so ridiculous, you could not say anything more idiotic if you tried.

I suppose you think hell is for our benefit, too?

It is amazing how religion warps one's understanding and gives rise to seemingly infinite stupidity.

Oh. Okay.